A hyperlink is defined as “an icon, graphic, or word in a
file that, when clicked on with the mouse, automatically opens another file for
viewing.”

If you were around (and paying attention) back when the
World Wide Web was in its infancy, you heard a lot about the exciting
possibilities of “hypertext,” which is the basis for the Web. When you surf the
Web with your Web browser, the “http” that begins the URL displayed in your
browser’s address bar or status bar stands for “Hypertext Transfer
Protocol,” and HTML, the language used for Web pages, is “Hypertext
Markup Language.”

The whole idea of hypertext is that you don’t have to read
it linearly, like a book. It contains “hyperlinks” that, when clicked, instantly
transport you somewhere else—another point in the same document or Web page or
another document or Web page. This is rather like turning from your current page
in a book to the notes or index at the back of the book, or finding a page
number in a table of contents and turning to that page, or finding a reference
to another book and going and getting that book, except that the process is
automated and instant.

Although hyperlinks were originally created for use on the
Web, they have become increasingly common in Word documents, especially those
intended to be read onscreen. When you insert a table of contents (TOC) in Word
2000 or above, by default the TOC entries are hyperlinked to the corresponding
headings in the text. In any version of Word the page numbers in a TOC are
hyperlinked to the corresponding pages. Cross-references are also, by default,
inserted as hyperlinks.

In Word a hyperlink consists of (at least) two parts: the
display text and the field code. The display text is what the reader
recognizes as a hyperlink, but the field code is what makes the computer
actually jump to somewhere else. Word provides several ways to create
hyperlinks.

The AutoFormat As You Type dialog includes a check
box for “Internet and network paths with hyperlinks.” If you have this box
checked, then whenever you type a text string that Word recognizes as an email
address, URL, or file path, it will automatically be converted to a hyperlink.
If you have the same box checked in the AutoFormat dialog, such strings
will be converted when you run AutoFormat over text that has already been typed.

In Word 2000 and earlier, both these dialogs are accessed
via Tools | AutoCorrect.

In Word 2002 and 2003, the Tools menu entry is
called AutoCorrect Options.

Note: You may wonder what type of text Word will
automatically recognize as something that should be a hyperlink. Word will
“recognize” as an email address any “word” that contains the @ symbol, even
if the “email address” is an expletive such as !@#$%. It will recognize text
as an URL if it begins with “www.” or “http://” I have not been able to
determine what it recognizes as a file path, though the presence of a colon
and slashes might be assumed.

On the Standard toolbar in Word 2003 and earlier
there is an Insert Hyperlink button (see Figure 2). In Word 2007 and
above, this button is in the Links group on the Insert tab of the
Ribbon. If you select (or
even just click in) a recognizable email address, URL, or file path and click
this button, Word will convert the text to a hyperlink. The keyboard shortcut
for this command is Ctrl+K. In Word 2007 and above, this shortcut opens the
Insert Hyperlink dialog (see below).

The Insert Hyperlink dialog, however, gives you the
most control over the hyperlinks you insert. There are at least two (and often
three) parts to every hyperlink: (1) the display text, (2) the underlying URL,
email address, or file path, and (3) the ScreenTip (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. The
Edit Hyperlink dialog (identical to Insert Hyperlink)

When you create a hyperlink using either of the methods
described above , the display text and underlying link are the same, and there
is no ScreenTip. To access these features you must either use Insert |
Hyperlink or Ctrl+K to open the Insert Hyperlink dialog or
right-click on an existing hyperlink and choose Edit Hyperlink to open an
identical dialog. If you have text selected when you press Ctrl+K or
choose Insert | Hyperlink, it will be placed in the “Text to display”
box. If you use Edit Hyperlink, the existing hyperlink becomes the
default “Text to display,” but of course you can change it.

In Word 2007 and above the Hyperlink command, which
opens the Insert Hyperlink dialog, is on the Insert tab; the
Edit Hyperlink dialog may be accessed by right-clicking on an existing
hyperlink as in previous versions.

The hyperlink created in Figure 3 will be displayed on
screen as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4.
Hyperlink in document

The underlying field code for the hyperlink can be seen by
pressing Alt+F9 or checking the box for “Field codes” on the View
tab of Tools | Options. It is shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5.
HYPERLINK field code

Note that the “display text” does not have to be text. You
can use an icon or picture as a hyperlink. Just select the picture in your
document and open the Insert Hyperlink dialog. The “Text to display” box
will be dimmed (grayed out) and will display <<Selection in document>>.

Word’s Help topic “Create a hyperlink” includes detailed
instructions for creating hyperlinks to a variety of targets using this dialog.

Although you may be used to seeing hyperlinks as blue and
underlined, they can be formatted in many different ways and may even look like
ordinary text. For example, TOC entries and cross-references, even when they are
hyperlinks, do not have the distinctive hyperlink formatting.

The Hyperlink character style in Word 2003 and
earlier is defined as
“Default Paragraph Font + Underline, Font color: Blue” (see Figure 6). Like any
other style in Word, this style can be modified, so the hyperlinks in your
document could be, for example, red and not underlined (as on this Web page)—or any other formatting
you desire. In fact, in Word 2007 and above, the formatting of the Hyperlink
style varies depending on the theme applied. For example, in the Aspect theme,
the Hyperlink color is a shade of green (RGB 107,157,37). Note that there is a separate Followed Hyperlink style
(defined as “Default Paragraph Font + Underline, Font color: Violet”) that is
automatically applied when a hyperlink has been followed; if you want your
hyperlinks always to look the same, you will need to modify this style as well.

Figure 6. The
Hyperlink character style

If you expect hyperlinks to be blue and underlined and
they’re not, there are several possibilities:

They’re not active hyperlinks (see next section).

The Hyperlink style has not been applied.

The Hyperlink style has been modified.

The Followed Hyperlink style is in effect instead.

The hyperlinks are cross-references or TOC entries.

If hyperlinks look like Figure 5 above, then you are seeing
the field code instead of the field result. You can select or click in the field
code and press Shift+F9 to toggle the display of that single field or
press Alt+F9 to toggle all the fields in the document or clear the “Field
codes” check box on the View tab of Tools | Options.

If a hyperlink, despite looking like a hyperlink, doesn’t do
anything when you click on it, there are three possible causes:

It isn’t really a hyperlink. It may just be plain text
with the Hyperlink character style applied. Press Alt+F9 to see if
there is an underlying HYPERLINK field code.

You are viewing the field code (see Figure 5) instead of
the field result.

You are using a version that by default
requires you to press Ctrl while clicking in order to follow the
link. If you have ScreenTips enabled, you should
see a ScreenTip such as the one shown in Figure 7.

This safety feature, introduced
in Word 2002, was intended to make it easier to edit the display text of
hyperlinks. If you prefer to revert to the behavior of previous versions,
clear the check box for “Use CTRL + Click to follow hyperlink” at the
following location:

This usually means that the display text of the hyperlink
doesn’t agree with the underlying link. As noted above, current Word versions make
it easier to edit the display text of a hyperlink; you can do this directly in
the document because, by default, clicking on or in the hyperlink doesn’t send
you haring off across the Internet to the referenced URL.

But changing the display text doesn’t actually change the
hyperlink, just the text that is displayed. This may be obvious to you if the
display text is different from the underlying URL, but if they are the same, it
may not occur to you. In order to change the target of the link, you need to
change the HYPERLINK field code as well. You can do this either through the
Edit Hyperlink dialog or directly.

To give you a real-world example, some time ago mvps.org
moved to a new server, and all the site addresses were changed. So a page at the
Word MVPs’ Web site that used to be, say, http://mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm
became http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm. In the
reference document that I use to keep track of frequently referenced articles at
this Web site, I had to change all the links. Using Find and Replace, I could
replace “mvps.org/word” with “word.mvps.org” in each link, and this worked great—for the
display text. But when I hovered over the links, the ScreenTips showed that the
underlying hyperlinks were unchanged. In order to change them, I had to display
the field codes (using Alt+F9) and run the Replace operation again.

To my surprise, even this was not effective. The ScreenTips
still showed the old URLs. What? Aha! I hadn’t updated the fields. By selecting
all the fields (Ctrl+A to select the entire document) and pressing F9
to update the fields, I solved the problem.

The bottom line is that if you want to change the target of
a hyperlink, you must do it in three steps:

Change the display text (if it is the same as the
target).

Change the underlying HYPERLINK field code.

Update the field.

Paul DeBrino has
reminded me of another issue that causes Microsoft Word to change and perhaps
break your hyperlinks, by altering the link from an absolute to relative path or
vice versa, when saving your Word document.

After creating a hyperlink in Word, hovering over that
hyperlink displays your intended path. However, once you click Save, Word
may change the link to a path that is relative to the Word document’s location,
a virtual path that begins with …/

To prevent Word from changing your hyperlinks, take the
following steps: